Imagination's £50 Creator CI20 is a Powerful New Microcomputer to Rival the Raspberry Pi

We love the Raspberry Pi and can tell you about plenty of awesome things you can do with it, but for makers and projects that demand a bit of extra oomph, there's a new high performance microcomputer from PowerVR chip designer Imagination.

The palm-sized, single-board MIPS Creator CI20 is powered by an Ingenic JZ4780 SoC and can run Android 4.4 KitKat (a Lollipop port is underway) or Linux distros. The chip's 1.2GHz dual-core processor is augmented by 1GB of DDR3 SDRAM and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU capable of 1080p playback at 60fps.

There's 4GB of on-board flash storage and an SD card slot for expansion, while connectivity options include two USB hosts, an Ethernet port, and an HDMI connector, plus 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectors.

Crucially, the Creator CI20's I/O connector block is compatible with the Pi, meaning it can interface with many of the same projects, though power consumption is lower than many rival boards, with graphics-intensive games drawing as little as 3W.

Imagination also has dedicated IoT development platform, FlowCloud, to help devices connect and interact across multiple locations.

Costing £50, the new board is now available for pre-order, though it won't start shipping until January.